


Foreshocks

by smokingbomber



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Child Mamoru, Child Shitennou, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Not Beta Read, Somewhat Implausible Competence, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9496040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: What if Mamoru Chiba hadn't grown up alone? AU in which child Kunzite finds child Mamoru in an institution.





	1. Prologue: Fault

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellorgast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellorgast/gifts).



_...sterile-seeming rooms and long white corridors, too-friendly adults in white just like the walls, full of unwanted sympathy and forced cheer, telling sugar-coated lies..._

_...and the 'rec room', full of broken children who nevertheless wanted, desperately, to connect. To believe the lies. To think that someone might come for them. To think that they might get better. Maybe someday some of them would. All of them, though, wanted someone to understand, wanted to be close with someone, anyone..._

_Just never with him._

\---

There was a bookshelf there, with space next to it; barred windows close by on the wall which formed the other part of the corner were something to look out if it became overwhelming. Even when he didn't need to look out the windows to the night sky, or the trees, or the carefully maintained paths and gardens, he remained in that corner whenever he was extracted from his room because it was time to play.

He was out of the first hospital, and out of the second. He was recovered from the accident, physically, and no longer needed monitoring -- but they still hadn't found family, and the amount of money associated with the names of his parents, the mountainous wealth in his trust fund, was enough to make sure that the search was thorough. After all, it would never do to create a scandal, to funnel any of that funding into the orphanage system, if he had living relatives who had some claim to him and make demands to get it back.

He was here instead of foster care because it only took a week for each of the two families who'd tried to put him up to send him back, claiming he was... damaged. Damaged, and it wasn't just the amnesia. They couldn't, with that much money to his name, claim that he had bad blood. But they could claim that he had special needs they couldn't care for.

They would never admit that when they touched him, they saw things that couldn't be explained, felt things that couldn't be explained. They would never admit that he was unnatural, or supernatural. They'd be laughed out of the program, and honestly, they wanted to be able to help children-- just, you know, _normal_ children.

The third foster family did damage him, and that was why he was here instead of a standard orphanage. They were more interested in the payout from the trust fund than helping, once they realized how strange he was. They never tried to touch him after the first time. They couldn't look in his arresting eyes, as blue and as ancient as the the vast oceans of the pretty marble floating in space. They let him have books, but kept him inside, locked in. They sent assignments to the school that tracked him, claiming he was ill. For months they kept him, hitting him in advance of the representatives the Ministry sent to check on his welfare so there'd be no bruises, making sure he knew it would be worse if he spoke up.

At nearly seven, he knew more kanji than they did. One of his assignments was supposed to be an essay, but was a letter asking extraordinarily politely for help.

Help came; help took him to this new hospital because he wouldn't speak at all by then, and still remembered nothing but his life since the accident, and because he was so extremely touch averse--

For now, they let him have gloves, and hoped that the therapy would work. Hoped that an environment that had responsible adults, free of cruelty, would help him begin to recover. Hoped that he might begin to remember.

He'd been there a month and failed to smile once, failed to interact with any of the other children, failed to speak. Instead he wrote, and he'd give these letters to his doctor, his therapist, and he told them about the dreams he had about a princess who loved him and would come take him away to the place where he belonged. He was convinced she was real, and asked if they would please find her for him.

Such a serious child. And such tragic delusions. But perhaps they were only the result of a vivid imagination, one that had come up with some kind of comfort for him. At least he wasn't interested in harming himself or anyone else. At least he continued with his schoolwork, years ahead of his level, and always did as he was told-- unless it involved interaction, unless it involved speech.

He'd been there a month, always taking to that corner of the playroom, watching the boys and girls laugh and talk and play or cry or tantrum; sometimes seeing them start fights and get taken out of the room by the adults that tried to comfort them or restrain them. He didn't want to play, he never did. Always he watched keenly, gloves on and pressed to the wall, half-hidden by the bookcase. Always he focused on the most emotional of the other children--

\--until a white-haired boy with silver eyes, maybe eleven or twelve, was ushered into the room with them one day.

He couldn't read him at all. There was no emotion on his face, and there was no emotion in the air around him, no aura of pain or joy or anger or guilt. Nothing. And yet--

And yet, there was something achingly familiar about him. There was something about him that the blue-eyed boy wanted desperately to latch on to and never, ever let go of.

He wasn't sure what the tell was-- what it was that allowed him to know, a second before it happened, that the boy was going to look his way-- but he knew, and he averted his eyes quickly, gaze landing on a five year old girl who was about to lose her temper and hit another child.

Even as he drank in her pain and the pain of the boy she smacked, drank in the laughter of the girl next to her and the fear of the girl next to that, drank in the joy of another boy across the room as his gaze flickered that way, he could tell that the older boy with the silver eyes was watching him.

Silver eyes and white hair, and he didn't want to play, either. 

In his peripheral vision, he saw the boy lean against the opposite wall, arms crossed, head pointed his way.

Finally he looked at him, and their eyes locked, and Chiba Mamoru came to the startling realization that there was, in fact, someone in the entire world who might actually understand.


	2. Asperity

"Ishihara-kun--?"

From his corner, gloved hands tucked up under his arms, Mamoru watched one of the adults approach the silver-eyed boy. It took a moment for that boy to look away from Mamoru and toward the adult, and though Mamoru couldn't hear anything beyond the little boy who'd started yelling right near him, he could see Ishihara's body language change. It had been closed off before, but resting; now the wall around the older boy became an active thing. 

Ishihara straightened up off the wall and let his face take on a scowl, and Mamoru could tell it was painted on over nothing at all. He started to follow the adult, and something inside the watching black-haired seven-year-old began to slip. His heart beat faster, in fear, in a strange sense of impending grief, and he'd been teaching himself for the better part of a year not to give in to these things because he couldn't affect anything by impulsive action--

\--but what was slipping abruptly caught, and stuck, and all of a sudden Mamoru found himself pushing out of the corner and running across the room, weaving between children and jumping over toys, nearly tripping twice, determined not to let them get to the door. 

He was three quarters of the way there before any of the other adults in the room were able to stop staring and move. The door was opening; the door opened; the adult stepped through-- Ishihara began to, and then started to turn just as one of the larger but infinitely more gentle orderlies caught Mamoru and started murmuring quietly to him.

Mamoru struggled. Mamoru reached an arm out toward the silver-haired boy, face panicked and pleading. Mamoru's mouth moved without anything coming out of it, and Ishihara stopped in the doorway and frowned, and it was nothing like the scowl he'd painted on. It was real. There was something beneath it.

"Hey," Ishihara said, coming back in the room and still looking at Mamoru, but addressing the orderly. "Let go of him. He can follow me if he wants."

"No he can't," said the adult who'd been leading him out, coming back through the door himself and reaching to touch Ishihara's arm. The touch was shrugged off violently, and whatever the look Ishihara gave the man was, it made him back off, face going neutral. "We found your aunt. She's coming to pick you up."

"I don't have an aunt," Ishihara said dismissively. "Let him come with me."

Mamoru had stilled, but only because the orderly'd wrapped an arm entirely around his small, thin frame, pinning his arms to his sides. His eyes, wide, were focused with alarming clarity on Ishihara. 

"You have an aunt. She provided verified documentation. He can't come with you, he needs to see his therapist."

_**"NO!"** _

Everyone in the room froze, all eyes turning to the seven-year-old no one there had ever heard speak. There was such a sound of authority to it, a ringing weight, an unbreakable command, that it didn't even process for a second that this _was_ the first thing Mamoru had said there. That, combined with the quality of the boy's tone and the resonance of his young voice, meant that when he wrenched himself in the orderly's grip, the orderly let go without a fight and straightened up, staring down at him.

Ishihara's eyes were locked on Mamoru's, and Mamoru could feel _something_ from the white-haired boy at last. It was a confused roil of emotions, but the strength and clarity of the signal was something Mamoru could grasp with the entirety of his focus and sink his hands into. Calmly, he approached the older boy, and his skin began to crawl as he started feeling the emotions of the rest of the room creep up on him and start getting in the way, as he felt all the eyes on him, as he felt himself turning back into a target, into something unnatural and noticed.

The calm started to dissolve. Mamoru's eyes started to sting, and he slowed, and he stopped two feet away from the tall, tall boy, looking up at him. His hand, even gloved as it was, only managed an abortive move to reach for Ishihara's before it dropped nervelessly back to his side.

Over both their heads, the administrator who'd come to collect Ishihara nodded to the orderly, and the orderly went over to the phone on the wall and spoke quietly into it. Still no one else spoke. Still none of the other children even moved. Chiba spoke. Chiba ran. Chiba had even struggled against an adult, he'd been wilful--

Ishihara crouched down, not losing the lock on ocean-blue eyes in the small boy's face. "Why do you want to--" he started to ask, and then frowned slightly; he could see the tremors. He could see-- "No, that's not it. Here," he said, reaching out to take the hand that'd started to lift toward him and stopped.

Mamoru flinched, and then started to lift his hand again, hesitantly-- and then a look of mingled desperate hope and crushing despair flooded his face and he ripped off his gloves and grabbed Ishihara's outstretched hand in both of his.

That was the second time in as many minutes that the adults in the room, all of whom knew Mamoru didn't speak, didn't touch, didn't interact, stopped and stared. So did those of the children who'd accidentally touched his skin, ever, and the entire room held its breath.

Ishihara didn't pull away. Didn't flinch, didn't look horrified or afraid--

The hope in Mamoru's eyes grew, even as he tried to stomp it down and even as he was certain that any second now, it would change; any second now, it would be over because he was wrong and he gambled and lost.

Then Mamoru watched the older boy's eyes soften for a half second, and his face became a mask again, but it was all right because he wasn't letting go of the tiny empath's hand. 

Wordlessly, Ishihara tugged on Mamoru's hand and pulled him around back of him, then gestured-- here, other hand, here-- and then stood up, effortlessly lifting the too-small seven-year-old up on his back. Mamoru wrapped his arms loosely around the older boy's neck, and Ishihara tucked his arms under the little boy's knees, and Mamoru whispered next to his ear, "I remember you."

It wasn't so quiet that the administrator didn't hear it, and after that-- well. 

The doctor could always meet them in the front offices. This was above the pay grade of literally everyone currently in this wing.

"Ishihara Kei," the white-haired boy murmured to the boy on his back.

"Chiba Mamoru," answered the seven-year-old, and tightened his grip a little, then leaned his head on Kei's shoulder.

"Mamorin," Kei teased, but he could feel such a rush of affection from the little boy -- _a nickname! _\-- that it wasn't teasing anymore.__

__They followed the administrator out of the play room and into the endlessly sterile white halls._ _

__\-----_ _

__It wasn't until Kei saw the wild mane of fire-engine-red hair through the office window that he remembered that reality never gave him goodness unless it was about to take everything that meant anything, and especially anything that meant everything._ _

__There was terror from the boy on his back, and Kei knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that that woman could never see Mamoru._ _

__He could shove the little boy at the administrator and keep him safe that way-- could willingly hand himself over to whatever was so bad, in order to keep anything from noticing Mamoru--_ _

__He almost did._ _

__Mamoru clung more tightly. "Kei," he whispered. "Kei. Don't leave me alone." He buried his face in Kei's neck, and Kei could feel the hot tickling of tears against his skin--_ _

__That was where it broke._ _

__Kei held on and ran._ _


	3. Refraction

There weren't sirens yet, because if they wanted to set those off, they had to take a lot of precautions first -- settle a lot of the kids in advance. And there was no widespread emergency. Phones, though, and the PA, and walkie-talkies--

The child just buried his face in Kei's neck and shoulder and trusted him, unconditionally, and Kei could feel that. Could feel it and knew it was true, just as he knew the moment the little boy touched him that this-- _this_ \-- was what he was for, this was who he'd been looking for for the better part of his young life. Even this running with him felt familiar, like he'd done it before.

He didn't start running with any plans beyond 'get away from the redhead' and 'get out the doors', but as he ran, ducking and weaving between adults who hadn't gotten the memo yet and didn't _know_ him yet, his mind raced far faster than his astonishingly swift feet. Out the door and onto the grounds, toward the fence -- if he couldn't scale the fence quickly enough with Mamoru on his back, he'd have to chuck him over it and follow, but that might get the boy hurt too.

There was a sense from Mamoru, fierce and bright and stubborn, that he wouldn't leave him behind anyway.

Kei gritted his teeth and poured on the speed, bursting out of the doors and into the grass; he could see the fence ahead, could see the parking lot--

_The parking lot._

Terror from Mamoru, and the flash of an image-- more sensation than image, a seatbelt cutting into his chest and the feel of a car crumpling around him, of jagged rocks breaking the windows and tearing through the metal body like it was tinfoil, abruptly silenced screaming and then blackness.

"We'll protect each other, then," muttered Kei under his breath, "and I won't try to drive."

The gates were open, letting a car in, which meant that Kei didn't have to worry about jumping the fence-- but he needed to get to that lot. If they saw him run out the gates, they'd think they were in the city on foot, and he'd have to be quick enough to sneak back into the lot and hope there was a car open without an alarm. It'd be harder than breaking into one and stealing it, but Kei was still eight or nine years from a driver's license, and at some point would have to learn how before getting one, which was the important bit.

Again, further planning was on hold while Kei ran out the gates and sped down the street, the shouting behind him starting to build and attract the attention of third parties, passers-by who would normally only be aggravated by a child carrying a smaller child smashing past them. People were starting to turn and look, starting to protest, starting to try and stop them; he knew in his gut if they were stopped that everything would be lost.

It didn't have to be a car from the lot, it could be any car, but they wouldn't expect him to double back. They could hide until someone, all unknowing, drove them away. They could. If he could find an open car and no one was looking--

There. The lot was gated with a guard, but only where cars came in; the pedestrian path through the fence was further down, he'd seen it when he was driven in. Kei ducked in through the bushes, then hunkered down with Mamoru in the foliage to catch his breath. The little boy started to slide off his back, and Kei began to protest, but a small hand on the side of his face gave him the image of Mamoru hiding there, ready to move again with no notice, while Kei looked for an open car with less encumbrance. 

Kei let go of Mamoru and glanced back and sidelong at him, corner of his mouth quirking up. "We're going to have to work on you using your words."

He was alarmed when the smaller boy's expression shut down and he turned his face away, and more alarmed still when in the middle of reaching out to pull him close again, Mamoru looked back at him and gave him a blank smile that had no relation to his eyes whatsoever. Kei grabbed him then and hugged him to his chest, sitting back on his heels and mashing his face into Mamoru's hair, and he could tell Mamoru was _trying_ to stifle his hurt, but the images and feelings, the guilt, the self-hate, the fear-- they all swirled in a chaotic storm in his head and he didn't know how to block _anything_.

It didn't take long for Kei's reassurance and acceptance and apology to sink in and calm the hot mess lurking below that black hair, and Mamoru relaxed into the hug and sort of turned into an apologetic little black ball of compressed self-castigation-- _for doubting Kei in the first place_. "Mamorin," Kei murmured into his hair, "stop. It's fine. You can show me later if you want to. I was teasing but I didn't mean for it to hurt, I didn't know that was someplace that hurt for you. You don't have to feel guilty for being hurt. It's not your fault, all right?"

Mamoru tried to process that, and could really only store it. Kei pursed his lips, and he let all of his own roil of emotional conflict drain out and away, leaving only steadiness and a fierce, protective love remaining for the blue-eyed boy to hang on to. "I'm going to find us a car to hide in. I'll be back very soon-- or you'll see me gesture for you to run to me. Okay?"

A tiny nod, and Mamoru hugged Kei hard, then slipped away and back into the foliage, and was very, very still.

Kei was kicking himself as he pulled up his hood and jogged purposefully out to the cars, moving at a clip that didn't look suspicious but allowed him enough time passing cars to look at the locks. Things he didn't put together in time to avoid breaking someone maybe even more broken than he knew he was-- not thinking. He hadn't been thinking. He had reactions to this kid that he didn't have to anyone else, and this kid was who he'd been looking for _forever_ , and he hadn't even bothered to think that maybe there was a reason--

He shook his head and focused on the cars. Up and down the rows, occasionally pausing and looking around the parking lot as if he'd forgotten where his parents parked, he made sure he was as non-suspicious as possible -- even threw up his hands in exasperation a couple of times, then took out his cellphone and made a gesturey 'call' while looking into cars, putting on a show for the guard who'd looked like he was going to get up.

Then Kei stopped. There. Unlocked, and a blanket in the back seat, too, and some random clothes and coffee cups and fast food trash, and it was an older car, and no alarm light blinked on the dash. He made sure to fistpump, opened the door, and bent down to apparently go fishing in the backseat -- and he kept his eye on the guard, on the gate.

Heart in his throat, because he was well aware of the fact that the car's owner could literally come back at any time, he waited until the guard was signing someone in to the parking lot to gesture Mamoru over-- and on first glance, he didn't see the boy anywhere. Kei started to panic.

Second scan revealed him already on his way there: to his credit, the younger boy had ditched his outer shirt, leaving just his white undershirt, and had put a pair of glasses on and considerably messed up his hair in the meantime. He didn't run; he was mimicking what Kei had done and trying to exude the impression that he was exactly where he belonged. It was just working well enough that Kei himself hadn't even registered it was him.

He saved the low whistle of appreciation for sneakery until they were in the back seat, under the blanket and covered by trash, door closed and still unlocked.

"That was really well done," he whispered, wrapped around Mamoru, and he could feel the warm, pleased glow from the praise even as Mamoru nestled in closer, glasses back in their case and arms curled up to his chest between them. 

It was as if the misunderstanding had never happened. The small boy felt _safe_. He felt safe for the very first time he could remember, and he was seven, so literally nothing else mattered right then.

Mamoru's awareness driifted until he fell asleep, and abruptly, Kei felt like he held the entire fragile world in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> true story: a guy i know at the gas station told me that he dreamt that all the customers were after him and he ran and hid in my car and i was his getaway driver because he knew i would be down with that. so, i guess these two broken babbies are in my car. pro tip: please don't hide in my car without warning me.


	4. Body Wave

He woke up hearing a heartbeat and being jarred a lot-- being carried. He tensed up immediately; there was no sense, not instantly, of who was carrying him... but he didn't hurt at all, so there mustn't've been an accident, and the person carrying him was running. It must have been Kei, clutching him tighter at the tension -- and one small hand lifting up to touch lightly at the skin just above Kei's shirt collar confirmed it, and relaxed him, and he could let Kei know he wasn't afraid, too. He also wondered if it wouldn't be easier if he ran, too, or if he was on Kei's back again.

The answer came verbally along with the instantaneous feedback of the negative: "Can't stop to switch yet." The image that came with the statement was of the owner of the car coming back outside as Kei was lifting Mamoru out, then taking a step forward as she hurriedly took out her cellphone.

Mamoru was silent after that, but his eyes were open, watching the tame residential forest pass them as Kei ran-- he wished he could make himself lighter, but that's not something he knew how to do. He could help, though, he knew he could--

The little boy's small hand reached up again to hang lightly around Kei's neck and shoulder, grubby fingers gripping the older boy's shirt up there to make sure at least his knuckles were touching skin, and he closed his eyes and wished Kei weren't so tired, wished he were a little stronger and a little faster, so that Mamoru wouldn't keep costing him so much. He put his heart into it, he insisted to the world that he'd give Kei his own strength and energy if he could. He thought-- maybe-- just a little-- maybe it was like how he could heal himself, how he could heal other people if they were hurt, if they didn't mind him touching them--

\--and he could feel Kei's indignation over what must have been Mamoru's life, what he could imagine a child like that must think of himself when people avoided contact. Mamoru turned his head in and smiled against Kei's chest, reassurance flowing across along with the dim golden glow of the power he was lending.

"I don't know what you're doing," murmured Kei, "but it's working. If it's hurting you, don't do it anymore; we're almost far enough away now." He hugged Mamoru closer, having kept some kind of sense of how far they'd gone and in what direction, but only from where the car had parked. He tried not to think about the fact that they didn't have any water, or food, and he didn't know where they were, but he wasn't quick enough to hide it from the boy in his arms.

"Down," insisted Mamoru, then, wriggling in his grip. "Put me down." His explanation wasn't really one, it was really vague but it brought with it the assurance, the confidence, that he could solve at least some of this. 

Kei seemed reluctant to stop, even now, but Mamoru could feel the older boy's personal judgement and experience, his paranoia, warring with a sense of trust and duty that he didn't understand. And finally, Kei slowed and stopped long enough to set Mamoru down, expression tight and worried.

Mamoru took Kei's hand and crouched down on the forest floor, digging his already-dirty hand into the leaves and below them into the dirt; he closed his eyes. Kei couldn't bring himself to ask, not after already having stopped for whatever it was Mamoru thought he could do. And whatever was going on in Mamoru's own head wasn't filtered-- Kei understood it even less, patterns and threads and bright spots, some moving and some still; warmth and pulses, coolness and threads of maybe energy, maybe something else-- but he could tell the child was looking for something.

Absently, the seven-year-old made reassuring sounds and split a little of his attention to Kei in order to let him know it was all right, and then he lit on what he was looking for.

Abruptly, the patterns he was getting from Mamoru clicked into place and made some kind of sense, because the little boy overlaid an image of a cave, slightly difficult to access but not immensely so, on what he'd sensed. And then the cave's location resolved: nearby a bright place full of moving lights and humming energy and flowing water -- not too far from a town with a bunch of strip malls and restaurants.

Most importantly-- its distance and its direction.

The black-haired boy with the dark blue eyes looked up at Kei with an enormous smile as he pulled himself to his feet, then dusted his hand off on his jeans.

Kei's expression was priceless, and Mamoru could tell from the tightening of Kei's hand on his and the awe and-- the sense of /treasuring/ him, holding him so precious, so very important and needing to be protected from anyone who would harm him-- that it was okay what Kei said next; the older boy's words didn't sting. Didn't sting at all.

"Mamorin. Are you a-- a yousei? Or a spirit--?"

Mamoru laughed delightedly, shaking his head so his hair flew everywhere and briefly covered his eyes, and he pushed it away with a dirty hand, leaving an epic smudge on his forehead. And then he let go of Kei's hand in order to fling himself into the older boy and wrap his arms around him, pressing his smudgy face into Kei's shirt after smiling like he was living sunshine. 

It was with humble amazement and no small amount of bewilderment that Kei enveloped Mamoru in his own arms. Why would someone like this choose someone like him? And why did every moment that passed make his belief more firm? His belief that he knew this boy better than he knew himself--

And then Mamoru's young face tilted back to look up at startled features and bone-white hair, and he looked apologetic. "I don't know who I am. Or if I'm a thing-- but I don't think I am..."

Kei immediately bent down to kiss Mamoru's forehead. "You're not a thing. And anyway it doesn't matter -- I'll be with you no matter what," he murmured, smiling a very small smile back down at him as he straightened.

And then he grinned and swung Mamoru around and hoisted him up, ducking his head to seat the small boy on his shoulders. "Let's go find your cave, magic boy."

 

\-----@@@-----

 

Kei had been tempted to build a fire in the cave -- it had reasonable ventilation, and he'd actually be able to make something like a chimney if he found enough serviceable pieces of raw material in the little town nearby, but even if smoke and carbon monoxide wouldn't be an issue in the cave, the smoke would be visible above the trees. He'd been about to make his way into the town earlier that evening to get some supplies, but Mamoru had a bad feeling and didn't want him to go -- so Kei silently gathered a leaf pile in one corner for them to sleep in that night, not arguing.

Mamoru was sitting silently near the back, playing with a family of mice that had made a home in the recesses of the cave, and he watched Kei with bright eyes in the near-darkness. 

"I'm sorry," he eventually said in a small voice, a mouse on his head and a couple of baby mice in one hand, the other carefully petting their heads. "I know-- you would have to steal them. And there's a-- people are agitated there. I think they found out, I think they're looking for us."

Glancing up and back at Mamoru, Kei just shook his head. "Don't be sorry. If you could find this place by looking in the dirt, who am I to mistrust a bad feeling you have? You know things I don't." 

His voice wasn't short, exactly, but he was tired, and he was thirsty, and he was hungry, and he couldn't help but feel that if he felt that way, Mamoru must be worse off. He sighed and came over to the smaller boy and his new mouse friends, crouching next to him and carefully putting a hand on the back of his shoulder and neck, showing him that he was only worried, not angry. "And I don't doubt they've posted descriptions. That woman was frightening."

Mamoru, having relaxed a little at the touch -- even if the mouse ran off his head and down his arm to tuck in around her babies -- tensed up a little. He didn't speak, he just showed Kei in return: he held a gut deep feeling that she'd taken Kei from him before, and in his mind, she didn't look like the woman in the office, not entirely. She had the same red hair but there was far more of it, and long pointed ears, and a frankly terrifying long gown, and fangs, and claws, and a sword. There was a feeling associated with the image of loss and agony and desperation.

Kei's hand tightened on him, first, and then the older boy's knees fell to the dirt floor and he pulled Mamoru back into his arms. "She won't take me again, then. I thought I could save you from her, but then who would look after you? You were right to make me keep running."

He tried to shield the littler boy from the reaction of visceral horror that the mental image had awoken in him, and hoped that tonight he wouldn't dream-- and it worked, if only because Mamoru was distracted with something else. Something complicated that Kei could only get a sense of. "...what other reason are they looking for you...?" he asked, barely keeping the cold worry from his voice.

"Money," the little boy managed to condense the complications into, letting the mice scamper away in order to duck his head and curl his arms in, half-hiding within the shield of Kei's arms. "Trust fund..." he trailed off.

"...shit," Kei said, squeezing his eyes shut, squeezing Mamoru, burying his face in the boy's hair.

They'd worry about it tomorrow, after they'd worried about water and food and blankets.

After sleeping.

It took a little while, but Kei eventually pulled Mamoru over with him into the leaf pile, and Mamoru was the first to fall asleep, their warmth shared and partially shielded by the dry and crackling leaves. It took Kei quite a while longer, but finally, mind uneasy and heart tight with fear, sleep claimed him too.


End file.
